ABSTRACT
This chapter offers some practical insights that will assist external sustainability consultants and internal sustainability change agents to deliver the potential 'sustainability advantage' available to their organisations. Strategic sustainability consulting, then, is about helping organisations embed sustainability into their business strategy in order to realise improved overall performance. More than most agendas impacting businesses, the sustainability agenda is moving very fast. When developing a sustainability strategy, the boundaries of an 'organisation' are much larger than for conventional economically based strategy making. Tactical sustainability is likely to be generic to the industry, in the organisation's downstream processes and often internally focused. Further, sustainability can be an emotional issue, becoming one person's judgement against another's if there is an absence of a good and common understanding of sustainability. Sustainability requires organisations to see the wider context in which they operate and to internalise all associated costs.
